WE HEAR THE SNAPPING FINGERS
As I hurried past the hall porter’s desk in the main entrance to the Regal Athenian, a boy came running after me. Smith had been detained, but he was anxious that I should establish contact with Sergeant Rorke.
“Urgent message for you,Mr. Kerrigan.”
At the sight of the handwriting on the envelope, my heart skipped a beat; the message was from Ardatha! I tore it open, there where I stood, and read:
The note was not signed.
Thrusting it into my pocket, I started up the imposing flight of carpeted stairs which had always reminded me of the palace scene in a Cinderella pantomime, and surveyed the vast foyer. The cosmopolitan atmosphere for which the Regal Athenian was celebrated tonight was absent; but there was a considerable ebb and flow of the after-theatre supper-seekers. I saw Ardatha at once.
She was seated on a divan not five yards away—deep in conversation with a sallow-faced man. She wore a perfectly simple blue evening frock which outlined her slender figure provocatively, exposing her lovely arms and shoulders so that her head, poised proudly, with its crown of gleaming hair set me thinking of a cameo by some great master. She did not so much as glance in my direction. But I knew that she had seen me.
Resolutely I walked along to the elevator and went up to our apartment. The knowledge that the presence of the sallow man alone had denied me at least a few stolen moments with Ardatha was a bitter pill to swallow; I could gladly have strangled him.
I opened the door, to find Sergeant Rorke standing Just inside. recognizing me, his tense attitude relaxed and he beganto chew again.
“Anything to report?”
“No, sir—except that a lady calls up ten minutes ago. She won’t leave her name. I just say you are out,”
“Nothing from Sir Lionel Barton?”
“No, sir. I’m a gladder man when he’s back here. Feeding wild animals is no part of a police officer’s duty.” He displayed a bandaged finger. “There’s one dead monkey on the books if I have my way.”
But I went into the sitting-room, lighted a cigarette, and began to walk to and fro beside the telephone. Ardatha was here! She had tried to get in touch with me. She had been followed; but she would try again. That the fact of her presence meant also that of Dr. Fu Manchu could not terrorize me tonight. Ardatha was here: soon, perhaps, I should hear her voice. If I had ever doubted what she meant in my life (and certainly I had known, always; for I had wanted to die when I believed that she had left me) tonight that swift vision of her dainty loveliness, her aloof, always mysterious personality, had confirmed the fact that without her I did not want to go on.
How long I wandered up and down the carpet, how many cigarettes I smoked, I cannot say. But, at last, the phone buzzed.
So utterly selfish was my mood, so completely was I absorbed in my dreams of Ardatha, that had the caller been Smith, or even the missing Kennard Wood, I know that I should have been disappointed. But it was Ardatha.
“Please listen very carefully.” Her adorable accent was unusually marked. “First, for someone else—a man called Colonel Kennard Wood will be killed tonight at some time before twelve o’clock. I cannot tell you how, and I do not know where he is, except that he is in New York. These—murders, horrify me. Try to save this man—”
“Ardatha—”
“Please, I beg of you! At any moment I may be discovered. We are setting out for Cristobal later tonight—as soon, I think, as Colonel Wood is dead. Tell me, now, if you found in London, any trace of Peko,Dr. Fu Manchu’s marmoset. He mourns him as one mourning a lost child.”
“He’s here, darling!We have him!”
“Ah!” the word reached me as a wondering sigh. “Please God you keep him safe! Tell me again. I cannot believe it: you have him?”
“We have him, Ardatha.”
“He may mean escape for me—the end of the living death. Come to Cristobal—Bart. When you reach the Panama Canal—”
“Ardatha! It’s more than I can suffer! Give me the word, and I will seeDr. Fu Manchu now, and test the value of this hostage!”
“Stop! It is impossible, I say! Listen: you can get in touch with me at the shop of a—”
The line was disconnected.
* * *
“So much and yet so little!” said Smith.
He was pacing restlessly up and down, surrounding himself with a smoke screen of pipe fumes.
“One thing at least is clear,” I declared. “Kennard Wood is doomed!”
“Don’t say that, Kerrigan! the idea drives me mad. Longton’s gone—and Kennard Wood next, whilst I stay idle! I wish I had been here when Ardatha called you. However, my delay with the police resulted in another clue, but a baffling one.”
“What clue?”
“The sheet—the sheet in which Longton’s body was thrown into the river—has been discovered.”
“Well?”
“It is bloodstained all over!”
“But—”
“Don’t tell me there were stains on the blanket, because I looked for them. Not a trace.” He turned suddenly. “You have noticed no evidence here of the peculiar smell?”
“None. But I have placed it. I know of what it reminded me—a chamel house!”
“Exactly. Hullo! Who’s this?”
The phone had buzzed, and he had the receiver off in a second.
“What! Kennard Wood? Thank God! Quick, man—where are you? At the Hotel Prado. No, no! Listen to me. I cannot explain, now. But you simply must not dream of going to bed! Leave all lights on in your apartment, remain fully dressed and wait until I join you!”
Running out to the lobby, he gave rapid instructions to Sergeant Rorke.
“You understand?” he said finally: “Inspector Hawk is downstairs. Tell him he is to start now, get this report and stand by at the Prado. Move.”
As Sergeant Rorke went out. Smith ran to the phone and called Police Headquarters. He was through in a matter of seconds.
“I want a raid squad outside the Prado in five minutes. They may not be needed, but I want them there. Is it clear? Good.” He hung up, and: “Come on, Kerrigan!” he cried.
A few minutes later we were hurrying through the foyer; but Ardatha was not there.We ran down the steps. A car belonging to the Police Department was always in attendance, so that with out a moment of unnecessary delay we were off for the Hotel Prado. Somewhere a clock was chiming midnight.
I looked out from the speeding car, striving to obtain a glimpse of the faces of travellers in other cars; of those who entered and left restaurants. Had Ardatha been detected by the spy set to watch her? Had she risked a ghastly punishment in communicating with me? But such speculations were useless, and selfish. Resolutely, I fought to focus my mind on the drama of Kennard Wood.
Here, amid the supermodemity of New York, surrounded by millions of fellow creatures, a man lay in the shadow of a death which surely belonged to primeval swamps and jungles. Already, in his apartment at the Prado, most up to date and fashionable Park Avenue hotel, Kennard Wood might even now have heard the Snapping Fingers!
As if he had divined my train of thought: “It is possible,” said Smith, “that some other method will be used against Kennard Wood.We cannot be sure. It is also highly probable that the Doctor’s watch-dogs will be in the foyer.” He leaned forward. “I am not familiar with the Prado, driver. Is there a staff entrance?”
